


What We Are, What We Do

by ryry_peaches



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: (steve is just a self-deprecating lil shit), (they're so so mild though), Coming Out, Fluff, Gay Panic, Gen, Internalized Homophobia, Minor Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers, POV Third Person Omniscient, Period-Typical Homophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-08
Updated: 2018-07-08
Packaged: 2019-06-07 10:43:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15217448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ryry_peaches/pseuds/ryry_peaches
Summary: Short and heavily internal Steve-comes-out-to-Peggy scene.  This is really quite a soft, fluffy story.





	What We Are, What We Do

**Author's Note:**

> (Belated) happy Pride! I haven't posted ANYTHING in sooo long, because shit's been happening! I came out to my parents so...that happened (they took it well!). And in the spirit of coming out, I projected my own anxieties onto poor bby Steve. Enjoy!
> 
> As always: not my characters. I'm not getting paid for this. Marvel owns Steve and Peggy. Etc, etc.

They’re in the back of a car in — some city filled with white people who don’t speak English; Steve can’t recall being told the name. But then, he hasn’t slept in three nights.

He’d protested, at first, when Agent Carter had pulled him away from the camp — away from Bucky — but she’d insisted on needing muscle for this assignment, muscle _and heart._ It turned out to be recon, espionage, real spy work with the suits and lying and manipulation, and Steve did his job adequately, mostly just flashed smiles and leaned on bars and gave earnest little quips about the good work the Party was doing, stuff that made him sick to his stomach, gulped down surprisingly weak malt whiskey to make the lies go down easy. And when the time came, he threw fists, and the other guy went down hard.

But Peggy _shone,_ in turns starkly professional and warmly coquettish, all twisted up in a red silk slip of a dress that covered and hugged and flared exactly right. The mission was a sparkling success.

Now they’re in a car and Steve is wired, despite or perhaps due to his exhaustion. He’s undone his suit jacket, and his tie lies loosely over his shoulders, and he barely cares that he’s in the presence of a lady — a lady who’s seen him without a shirt on, anyway.

Peggy clears her throat delicately and turns her torso towards him. He meets her eyes, feeling no less jittery than he did back in that first car ride with her, the one he earned with the fallen flag.

“Captain — Steve,” she corrects quickly at the look he gives her, “It’s —” She glares down at her hands, folded primly in her lap, pale in contrast to her dark peacoat. Steve doesn’t say anything, just furrows his brow, unsure how to handle Agent Carter at a loss for words; it’s never happened before. She quickly turns her eyes back up to him, her jaw visibly tighter.

“Agent,” he says, softly, questioning.

“It’s improper for a woman to be so forward, but at this point, I’m not overly concerned with propriety. I want to ask you — we’re in town for another evening at least — would you like to go to dinner?”

Steve falters. “You’re asking —” He’s not sure it isn’t a joke, though he knows Peggy isn’t cruel; no dame has ever looked his way twice before, though. He’s certainly never been asked on a date. He’s not sure even _Bucky_ has had a _dame_ ask _him_ out before. The situation is so many levels of unprecedented.

But then, a shot that can turn a sickly scrap of a man into a supersoldier is unprecedented, and here he is. So maybe can roll with it.

 _But then,_ there’s the issue of…

Himself. And Bucky. What they are, what they do, what that means for a woman to want him.

“To take you out, yes.” Her cherry lips are parted, her eyes bright. Steve forces himself to look into them.

“Agent Carter —”

“Peggy.”

“Peggy, I’m awful flattered, but —” He bites his lip, at war with himself. Unsure what to say, what to divulge. His stomach twists wretchedly.

“No, I understand. Please excuse my indescretion.” Her eyes steel and tighten to match her jaw — she’s been told in the past that she’ll have vicious wrinkles in old age. The curve of her lips is still soft, though, betraying her feelings — unnameable — a gut punch, a missed shot. “I apologize, Steve — I believe I misread you.”

“No, Peggy, it’s — you’re a beautiful dame — lady! And I enjoy your company, but I have —”

“Don’t tell me you have a girl waiting at home for you, Steven, don’t make a liar of yourself. You’ll only make a fool of both of us.”

“Peggy —”

“I’d rather we drop the subject, if you please.” She turns forward; in the corner of her eye, Steve’s face twists, first with upset (perhaps embarrassment? Perhaps pity — perish the thought) and then with resolve.

 _“Peggy,”_ he says imploringly, and he looks so wide-open and vulnerable. “I don’t have a dame at home.”

“It’s quite alright.” He’s a beautiful man and a good one. But he’s got duty, a war to focus on. She doesn’t know why she bothered —

“No!” He sounds frustrated as hell; she turns to face him head-on once more. Both fists are balled tightly against his thighs, his shoulders tense, his brow furrowed something awful. “No, I mean — not a _dame,_ is what I mean.”

Peggy thinks her jaw might hit the dusty floor of the car. “Oh,” she says softly. “I see.”

Steve stares straight ahead. Towards her, but not at her. “Please, don’t tell anyone. I’ll get taken from the program, stripped of my ranks — evicted, back home…” He sounds so soft. For perhaps the second time in the time she’s known him, Steve doesn’t seem strong and full of fight. He looks like someone who’s already waved a white flag. Something moves in Peggy’s chest, a warmth like the first sip of a glass of whiskey. Tenderness.

“Sergeant Barnes,” she says, almost a question. She’s not sure exactly what she’s asking — _does he know? Is he perhaps the gentleman himself?_

“Yeah,” Steve says, and his eyes go glassy. “Please, Buck has got a lot more to lose than I have, he’s got sisters…”

Peggy reaches out her right hand and lays it oh-so-lightly on his shoulder. “I won’t tell a soul,” she promises, and the whiskey-warm feeling dances in her stomach, rises to her cheeks. 

“Stark —”

“Steven. Not. A. Soul.” His eyes bore into hers, bright and probing, and she quite literally watches the relief light them up. What it must be like to keep such a secret — she shudders to think it. A lover is no source of shame, shouldn’t be, at the very least.

“Is it…” He pauses. They’ve been put up in a motel suite nicer than his apartment back home, with two big beds and the kind of big, lumpy, fluffy pillows that Steve was delighted to discover his head sank right into. “I can find another place to sleep tonight —”

“I won’t hear of it.” Peggy gives him a half-smile, unsure of what to say — and if there’s one thing Margaret Carter does not handle well, it’s being unsure of herself. She turns awkwardly, retracting her hand, and looks out the window for the remainder of the ride.

When they reach the motel, there’s no time or need to diffuse the awkward tension that’s followed Steve’s confession, as they take turns bathing and dressing for bed. Steve politely offers Peggy the first turn, she politely accepts, and for nearly forty-five minutes they don’t have to worry about speaking.

When they’re both finally tucked up in their chaste separate beds, Steve in cotton pants and Peggy in a long wool nightgown, Steve pulls a pulp paperback from his bag and buries himself in it. Peggy watches him vacantly for a bit, the little shifts and changes in his face as he loses himself in a gritty murder mystery, thinking over what she wants to say to him.

Finally she’s arranged the words in her head into suitable speaking order. She clears her throat. “Steve, if I might interrupt…?”

He lays down the book on his lap, one finger marking his page. “…Peggy?”

“Forgive me, but I doubt I could forgive _myself_ if I didn’t ask you: have I misread you, the way you…speak to me, act with me, or did you mislead me?”

Thoughtful clouds cross his face, little creases framing his eyes. Uncomfortable. “I suppose I did, but not in the way you — I like you, Agent,” he says plainly, honestly etched as clearly as the worried wrinkles into his face. “I’d like to think I coulda been good to you, in a different setting. You’re a beautiful woman.”

“But you’re —”

“A fairy?” He half-smiles, his eyes unchanged. “I’m abnormal, is what I am. Bucky’s dragged me to this back alley bar, back home — the kind of place people like us hang out, the cops don’t bother it much — and all the guys seem to have one thing in common…what they like. But I like both.”

Peggy wonders privately if Steve has ever said it out loud — that he prefers gentlemen. Or at least, one gentleman. (And, having had an eyeful of Sergeant Barnes herself, she can’t quite blame him.) But this is somewhat new to her, and the words spill unbidden from her bare lips: “Is that allowed?”

Steve barks a laugh, and the wrinkles around his eyes shift a tiny bit. “None of this is _allowed,_ Peggy.”

She squeezes her eyes shut. “Forgive me. I didn’t mean anything at all by it —”

“It’s fine.” His smile shifts, fills out. He’s propped on one elbow, his bare chest twisted towards her. “Peggy…”

“Yes?”

“I’m glad I told you.” His smile widens for half a second before he drops down and rolls over, his broad, muscled back towards her.

“Me, too, Steve,” she says softly.

Steve is snoring within minutes — worn out, the poor thing. But despite having been awake and working as long as he has, she can’t seem to quiet her mind. She lies back and looks at the mottled ceiling, and doesn’t fall asleep for hours.


End file.
